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ne of my main annoyances with Vista
Sager NP9260
The Ultimate
Gaming Machine - Powered by Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme "Conroe" processor and nVIDIA® SLI
Technology also capable of RAID 0/1/5 with three hard drives coexisting with an
optical drive, the NP9260 delivers unrivaled gaming performance and unmatched
storage capacity that surpasses the competition!
NP9260 Detailed Specs
Display
 17"
WSXGA+ (1680x1050) or WUXGA (1920x1200) Widescreen "Super Clear Glossy" LCD
Display
32-Bit True Colors
Processor & Chipset
Intel® Core™2 Duo "Conroe" E6400 2.13GHz, E6600 2.4GHz, E6700 2.66GHz OR,
Intel® Core™2 Extreme X6800 Desktop Processor @ 1,066 FSB w/4MB L2 On-die
Cache with Arctic Silver 5 Compound Standard
Chipset: Intel® P965 Express Chipset + ICH8R
1066
MHz System Front Side Bus Speed
Disk Drives
Up to 3 SATA/150 Hard Drives
Raid 0/1/5 Supported (System can run 3 Hard Drives and Single Optical Drive
Simultaneously
DUAL
Layer Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW
7-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/CF/MD/SM)
Memory
1024MB DDR2/667 or 800MHz Memory (expandable to 4GB w/64-bit Vista)
Two
SO-DIMM sockets
Video Controller
Single or
DUAL nVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7950 GTX PCI-Express™ 16X Modules with 512MB
(1,024MB Total w/SLi) GDDR3 Video Memory
Supports 2048x1536 external monitor resolution (resolution can not be higher
than laptop)
Audio & Multimedia Features
Built-in ALC655 AC'97 Audio CODEC Sound System
8 Channel output w/o External Decoder - 4 multi-function audio ports
4 Built-in Stereo Speakers
4 Audio ports:
1. Headphone out
2. Mic-in
3. S/PDIF-out
4. Line-in
Sound Blaster compatible
Wavetable 3D Surround sound
Network
Built in Ethernet 10/100/1000BaseT Network
Built-in mini-PCI Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965AGN 802.11a/g/n Wireless LAN
Built-in Bluetooth
Built in 56k V.90/V.92 Modem
I/O Interfaces
4 USB 2.0 ports
DVI & VGA External Monitor Output
IEEE-1394 Firewire Port (4-pin)(OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller)
4 Multi-Purpose Audio Jacks
S-Video TV output
TV-in Port (Requires Optional TV-Tuner Module)
Kensington lock support
Input Device
Keyboard with Full Size Keys including
10-key numeric keypad
MS Windows Function Keys
Integrated with Hot Keys for LCD Brightness, Suspend, Panel/CRT Display
Programmable 2 Button TouchPad w/Scroll Slider 2-way scroll function (up and
down)
Integrated with 2 User Definable Gaming Hot Keys
Express Card Slot
1 Express Card 54/34 Slot
Battery
12-cell Smart Lithium-Ion Battery 14.8V - 6,600mAH
Primary Battery Life is about 1-1.5 Hours
Electrical / Power
Full Range 100-240V A/C, 50-60 Hz Auto-Sensing, Auto-Switching Universal AC
Adapter
Cooling
Artic Silver 5 thermal compound standard
Copper CPU Heatsink
Size and Weight
11.75"W x 15.5"D x 2.35"H
11.55 lb. including battery
(with Power Adapter 3 Hard Drives, Battery, Single Video Card & Case it
weighs in at 18.5lbs)
Warranty
1-Year Parts & Labor Warranty
Lifetime Toll Free Technical support
One, Two & Three Year (ADP) Accidental Damage Protection Full Coverage Plans
along with Onsite service (Optional)
Additional Features
Integrated Digital 1.3Megapixel Video Camera
Built-in TV Tuner w/Remote Control available
Deluxe Carrying Case Standard
XP Home / XP Pro / Vista Home Premium / Vista Business / Vista Ultimate
(Optional)
Drivers and Utility CD
User's Manual
| 1. Telephone Cord
2. Thermal Compound
3. Audio/Video Input through S-Video
4. AC Adapter
5. Power Cord
6. Drivers CD Windows XP
7. Nero |
8. Drivers CD Windows
Vista
9. 32-Bit Vista Restore CD
10. User Manual
11. 64-Bit Vista Restore CD
12. Power DVD
13. Sager Warranty Info
14. Black Business Case |
| 1. Multi-Functional
Audio Jack Out
2. Multi-Functional Audio Jack Out |
3. Microphone
4. Headset Audio Out |
On the right side of the machine you will fine (1) 4 USB 2.0 Ports and (2) and
Kensington Lock
| 1. Air Vents
2. Power Input
3. DVI Out |
4. Air Vents
5. Air Vents
6. S-Video Out |
Shown with a Quarter standing up on the Side to show the
thickness of the 9260.
| 1. VGA Out
2. S-Video In / Cable TV In
3. Modem
4. Gigabit LAN |
5. Mini IEEE 1394
Firewire 6. Express Card Slot
7. 7 in 1 card reader
8. DVDRW Optical Drive
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Very nice front-panel Audio Access.
Hot keys at the top from left to right:
email, internet, audio, and power by default.
Below is a picture of the 9260 next to a 15.4" Asus V1JP
and next to a 13.3" Asus Z35FM
The RAM
The unit has two memory slots which, will handle 4GB of RAM. At this time
of testing we are using 4GB (2x2GB) SODIMM DDR2 667MHz Ram. There are also
options for the use of DDR2 800MHz Ram up to 2GB. The Ram Dimms have a
dedicated fan located immediately above the sockets.
The Graphics Card
The 9260 is being released with the NVIDIA 7950 GTX. It's a socket type GPU and
it can be easily removed. There is no word to confirm a future option and how it
would be upgraded (end user, Sager). This unit uses PCI-Express Video Cards.
7950 Heatsink:
Here is the 512MB 7950GTX Out of the machine
The Processor
Intel® Core™2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz, E6600 2.4GHz, E6700 2.66GHz OR,
Intel®
Core™2 Extreme X6800 Desktop Processor
1,066MHz FSB
w/4MB L2 On-die Cache with Arctic Silver 5 Compound Standard
| 1. CPU
2. RAM (2 SODIMM Sockets)
3. #1 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable)
4. #2 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable) |
5. 3rd Hard Drive Bay / Battery
6. Dual Hard Drive Bay
7. Vents
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The
Cooling
The 9260 comes equipped with a well designed copper heatsink system with
dedicated cooling for many components. The CPU, RAM and Each Graphics Card
have their own dedicated Fan.
From Left to Right - GPU Copper Heatsink, CPU Copper
Heatsink
From Left to Right - GPU Copper Heatsink, CPU Copper
Heatsink
From Left to Right - CPU Fan, Memory Fan, Video Card Fan
Bottom of CPU Copper Heatsink
| 1. CPU
2. RAM (2 SODIMM Sockets)
3. #1 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable)
4. #2 Video Card Slot (SLI Capable) |
5. 3rd Hard Drive Bay / Battery
6. Dual Hard Drive Bay
7. Vents
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Temps:
Our room temperature was at approximately 77.2 degrees. We tested
during the Fifth through Seventh repeated run of 3D Mark 06 and observed the following temps
| 1. Keyboard 90.3
2. Wristpad 81.8
3. Right Side 81.6 4. Left Side
82.8 |
5. Back End of Laptop 95.1
6. Front of Laptop 81.4
7. Power Brick 100.7 |
The Hard Drive's
The Sager 9260 has the option for up to three internal mobile SATA hard
drives and they can be configured with RAID 0, RAID 1, Raid 5 or as three
separate drives without RAID.
Raid 0 is known
as "striping" and is for pure performance. What happens is the two drives look
like one as far as storage goes and data is written/read from them both at the
same time. The hard drive can often be the bottle neck in programs and when you
have three drives that the system can write/read half the data each at the same
time it can do it much faster than writing/reading all of the data from a single
drive. If one drive fails, there's is no recovering data from the drive still
good. In RAID 0, two 100GB hard drives would show up as a single 200GB drive in
Windows.
RAID 1 which is
known as "mirroring" and is where one drive is cloned to the other one when
writing data. This is for backup type purposes but keep in mind a virus will
corrupt both drives so the main thing you can protect yourself with RAID 1 is if
one of the drives physically fails, there's a chance the other can be your
recovery drive. two 100GB drives in RAID 1 will show up as one single 100GB hard
drive in your Windows interface.
RAID 5 is a Striped Set (3 disk minimum) with Distributed
Parity:
Distributed parity requires all but one drive to be present to operate; drive
failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive
failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the
distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The
array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is
vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a
replacement drive.
With the 9260 two hard drives are mounted in a dual hard drive cage and the
third is housed under the battery.
We tested with two 100GB 7200rpm SATA drives in Raid 0. We received better
scores with Raid due to the throughput of the SATA technology, when combined
with the raid configuration.
-The LCD
The WUXGA (1920x1200) option has the glossy/glare display. We could find no ghosting at all.
The WUXGA has very good viewing angles.
The Audio
The on-board audio output consists of four speakers standard.
This is a setup we have seen in many of the recent notebook releases. The
sound actually sounds really good, with no tin can sound
and none of the vibration sounds you usually hear. If they
don't do it for you, you still have the 8 channel sound system you can plug
speakers into.
Below you will see the 4 speaker layout:
The TV Tuner
Hooking up your cable TV is very simple.
Just launch the Avermedia Software and it will auto detect and set your
channels. The unit supports both NTSC and PAL without any hardware change
required. You can control your TV in full screen or windowed from a
distance with the remote control it comes with.
The TV Tuner is an option and the S-video port next to it also has the ability
to capture your input video.
The
Software
Standard with all 9260 systems comes Nero for burning and Power DVD
for DVD Playing. With the TV tuner option comes with software for Windows XP /
Vista. Our 9260 came with Vista Ultimate 64-Bit
Installed. When purchasing the 64-Bit version you get both the 32-Bit and
64-Bit Install CD's for Windows Vista. It is just like a regular Windows
install and requires you to load the drivers after the install.
By default
through most resellers the model is by default configured without a OS.
Whether you purchase a Operating System or not you will receive the drivers &
utilities CD's for both Windows XP and Vista. If you purchase a Operating
System it will come fully installed and ready to use right out of the box.
The Camera
1.3MP Bisoncam
The camera takes very clear pictures.
The Battery
The battery is a 12 cell Li-Ion 14.8V 6600MaH held in by 3 retaining screws
Tested with WIFI On and Bluetooth Off
Screen 40% Brightness: 1 Hour and 38 Minutes
Screen 100% Brightness: 1 Hour and 19 Minutes
Other
The keyboard is a solid design with very little play/flex/bounce that you often see in
laptop keyboards. The number pad on the right is something that's become
standard with many of the Sagers these days.
The AC power adapter is larger then most notebooks to accommodate the heavy
power requirements. Below is a picture of a Aus V1JP (15.4") AC Adapter on
top and to the left of Sager 9260 AC Adapter.
Game Shots with the WUXGA
The Benchmarks
nVidia NTune 5.05.38.00 is what we used to overclock the Video Card.
Stock scores were all ran at there default detected speed
How the test were ran.
- 3dMark05 = default (stock and overclocked)
- 3dMark06 = default (stock and overclocked)
- HD Tuner = default, (stock)
- Super PI = default, (stock)
- Windows Experience Index = default, (stock)
HD Tune:
Super PI:
Windows Vista Experience Index Scores
3DMark '06
Using stock nVidia Driver
Score (Stock) Single Video Card - 5413 (575 Core / 700 Memory)
Score (Stock) Dual Video Cards on SLI - 9162 Score (Overclocked)
Single Video Card - 5918 (643 Core /
723 Memory)
3DMark '05
Using stock nVidia Driver
Score (Stock) Single Video Card - 8693 (575 Core / 700 Memory)
Score (Overclocked) Single Video Card
- 9141 (643 Core /
723 Memory)
(!!Overclock at your own risk!!)
3DMark05 Results and comparison:
| Notebook |
3DMark 05 Results |
| Sager NP9260 (Core 2 Conroe 2.66, Nvidia
7950GTX 512MB) |
9,141 3D Marks OC'd |
| Sager NP9260 (Core 2 Conroe 2.66, Nvidia
7950GTX 512MB) |
8,693
3D Marks
Stock |
| Sager NP5760 (Core 2
Duo 2.33GHz, Nvidia 7900GTX 512MB) |
8,175 3D Marks |
|
Sager NP9750 (AMD X2
4400+, Nvidia 7900GTX 512MB) |
8,313 3D Marks |
|
Sager NP9890 (P4 3.2GHz, Nvidia 7800GTX) |
6,319 3DMarks |
|
Sager NP7620 (P4 3.6GHz,
ATI X800 256MB) |
3,702 3DMarks |
| Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce
Go7800 GTX) |
7,078 3DMarks |
| Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI Radeon Mobility
x700 128 MB) |
2,530 3D Marks |
A Word about Quad Core
We were able to boot the system and do many things within
Windows without problems. However when trying to test the machine with
synthetic benchmarks (with a single video card) we encountered random problems when the Intel Quad Q6600
was installed. We do not recommend using this processor as it will cause
gradual deterioration to the machine. Sager wanted to post the following
regarding the Q6600 below in our review:
[QUOTE=From Sager]
We want to explain to our
customers the reason why we are not using the Q6600 Quad Core processor in our
NP9260 unit, and why modifying your unit by adding that processor will void
your warranty and release Sager from all liability relating to the
malfunctioning of the unit.
While
Sager does our best to bring leading technology to our customers, we can not
ignore the lab test result from Clevo.
Per
Sager’s request Clevo has conducted multiple tests to determine whether the
Q6600 Quad Core processor is usable in the current Sager NP9260 (Clevo D901C
Black color). While the system will accept the processor and boot up, due to
hardware specifications it will cause system failure if used long term.
While you
may have read that the Intel X6800 and the Q6600 are very similar in thermal and
wattage, that is not the case. Reports showing these similarities have not
been run in real life applications and uncontrolled environmental conditions.
The fact
is:
Intel
X6800 is a 75 watt sku
Intel
Q6600 is a 105 watt sku
This puts
the Intel Q6600 Quad Core 30 watts over specification. This can increase by an
additional 10 to 15 watts under extreme max load conditions. This wattage
increase brings additional heat and often will be combined with environmental
temperature. A few benchmarks simply do not show the real world long term
effect on the system.
Rest
assured that we are constantly working to use the latest and greatest technology
in our units. And we have requested Clevo to continue working to enable
Quad-Core functionality. However, we are also committed to providing our
customers with a product that will work reliably in the long term. In this
case, using the Q6600 in the NP9260 would not accomplish that goal.
[/QUOTE]
Conclusion
Overall this a excellent desktop replacement
laptop that is unique and has unmatched performance and storage capacity for a
laptop. There is one of the very few laptops that have broken the 9,000
Mark in 3D Mark 06.
Pros:
-Solid build and attractive overall look & design
-Very little flexing
-Built in 1.3MP Camera
-DVI & VGA Output's
-Dual
Video Card Capable on SLI
-Up
to 3 Hard Drives (Raid 0/1/5)
-Superior gaming performance
- 9000+
with Dual Video Cards in 3D Mark 06
-Numeric Keypad
-Great Cooling System that is quiet considering the 3 Internal Fans
-When Vista 64-Bit is purchased you get copies of both 32-Bit and 64-Bit
-Very nice WUXGA screen.
Cons:
-Heavy (with Power Adapter 3 Hard Drives, Battery, Single Video Card & Case
it weighs in at 18.5lbs)
-Low
Battery Life
-Runs a little warmer then most other notebooks
-Large Power Adapter
The
Cons are to be expected of a DTR notebook of this nature.
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